Lieutenant-Commander Barklie Lakin DSO DSC and Bar Royal Navy

LIEUTENANT-COMMANDER BARKLIE LAKIN
During the Second World War, Richard Barklie Lakin commanded three submarines, two of which took part in the desperate campaign to establish control of the Mediterranean, ensure the survival of Malta and starve Field-Marshal Rommel’s Afrika Corps of essential supplies. For his gallantry and professionalism he was awarded the DSO and two DSCs.
At the age of eight he survived a car accident that killed his father. His subsequent survival through many perilous occasions has been attributed to having been born with a caul, believed by many societies to be an omen of good luck.
After graduating from Dartmouth naval college in 1932 and serving in the cruiser Sussex in the Mediterranean, Lakin volunteered for submarines and was first appointed to the Narwhal to learn the ropes as the ‘4th hand’. Lakin’s lively hobbies included racing a Bugatti at Brooklands and riding the fastest motorbike then available – a 1000c HRD Rapide – for which he had obtained a one-piece waterproof garment from Barbour’s of South Shields. In May 1938 he joined the Ursula as navigating officer, captained by the celebrated Lieutenant-Commander George Phillips DSO GM who, fed up with standard Admiralty oilskins, quite unsuitable for the really wet conditions on the conning towers of small submarines, seized upon Lakin’s garment and adapted it to a two piece version which, after testing with a fire-hose, became standard submariners’ clothing, famously named the ‘Ursula-suit’.
Lakin’s appointment to the new submarine Thetis was luckily cancelled in favour of a Lieutenant Frederick Woods who was the torpedo officer on March 3 1939 when Thetis sank during her initial trials in Liverpool Bay due to some enamel paint having blocked a torpedo tube test cock, thus not revealing that the tube bow door was open. Despite frantic rescue attempts, this notorious catastrophe cost 99 lives.
At the outbreak of war he was appointed instead as second-in-command of the elderly H32, operating in the North Sea. He was mentioned in dispatches before being sent to the submarine Utmost in November 1940, again as second-in-command. Arriving off Gibraltar, Utmost was mis-identified and rammed by the destroyer Encounter and took a month to repair. Subsequently, a successful series of patrols which sank Italian supply ships and landed or recovered agents on three occasions resulted in the award of Lakin’s first DSC, his captain earning a DSO.
Returning home for the submarine commanding officer’s course, or ‘perisher’, Lakin was then appointed in December 1941 in command of the H43 which, with a hurriedly assembled crew of trainees, was deployed with several other submarines to attack the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau with cruiser Prinz Eugen as they made their celebrated ‘Channel Dash’ from Brest to safety in Germany.
He took command of the Ursula at home in March 1942, joining the ‘Fighting 10th’ submarine flotilla in Malta during the protracted Mediterranean battle which saw a 50% loss rate of British submarines. In early November Ursula was stationed off Oran as one of 21 submarines protecting Operation Torch, the Allied landings in North Africa. Later a sabotage team was successfully landed and recovered near Genoa and an anti-submarine vessel sunk by gunfire. Ordered to divert Axis activities away from invasion beaches, Lakin was commended by the expeditionary force commander for his efforts which included bombardments of oil tanks and railways and the sinking of a supply ship by gunfire. In December he sank a large heavily escorted steamer but got too close to another and was run down, losing his periscopes, blinding the submarine. For his part in Operation Torch and kindred operations he was awarded the DSO.
By April 1943 the tide had turned in the Mediterranean. Lakin’s command of the Safari continued that submarine’s exceptional war record, he being awarded a second DSC for four successful patrols. After acting as a navigational beacon for the invasion of Sicily for which he was awarded the American Legion of Merit, the Safari attacked and sank by torpedo and gunfire a variety of petrol carriers, barges, a minelayer and minesweeper, expending all her ammunition in a final patrol which the dry official history describes as ‘audacious’.
Having taken Safari home for refit, Lakin followed the movement of the centre of gravity of the war with an appointment as British liaison officer on the staff of the American commander of all submarines in the Pacific. Never one for sitting in an office, Lakin went on patrol in several USN submarines, acting as mentor and submarine warfare instructor to inexperienced captains. Some of his experiences were alarming; penetrating into the Sea of Japan through the Tshushima minefield in the USS Crevalle and being surprised and bombed by a floatplane whilst on the surface off Rabaul.
During his final tour in the Royal Navy, Lakin looked after a host of surrendered U-boats at Londonderry prior to their scuttling or scrap. In 1946 he retired and joined Vickers Armstrongs Engineering where he had a long and successful 30 year career, rising to Chairman and CEO. Always an ingenious man with an enthusiasm for practical engineering that was evidenced by the well-equipped workshop which accompanied all the family moves, he was also known for his enlightened man management. When asked why there was never a strike at Vickers Elswick, the union convenor replied; “Because the Commander will always see us right”. The Suez crisis of 1956 broke when he was managing Tel el Kebir, the British Army’s huge engineering and supply base in Egypt. While his family was repatriated, Lakin was interned for six months. He later worked for Joseph Isherwood Shipping Architects before finally retiring to Seaview in the Isle of Wight.
His wife Pamela Jackson-Taylor, whom he married in 1936, died in 1981. His second wife, Pansy Phillips, also pre-deceased him. His devoted companion, Joy Almond, supported his final 17 years. He is survived by the three sons and three daughters of the first marriage.
Lieutenant-Commander Barklie Lakin DSO DSC and bar,
WW2 submarine captain and businessman, was born on October 8, 1914.
He died on March 1 aged 96.